


Illusions of Light

by Aemileth



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Magic, Manipulation, Other, Unreliable Narrator, dark Lúthien, messing with powerful beings and getting a headache, not really romantic romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aemileth/pseuds/Aemileth
Summary: It is a deadly game, but he loves a challenge, and she is a master opponent and a lustrous prize all in one.
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë/Lúthien Tinúviel
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Illusions of Light

It is impossible not to notice how beautiful she is. He cannot wholly blame Tyelkormo for falling for her. 

Her eyes are dancing fireflies, her hair is a river of starlit evenings. Her voice is the sweetest rosewater. She is beautiful. 

But there is something deeper beneath that lovely visage, that lies behind her flesh and peers out from those fair eyes,  _ watching, waiting. _

__ She is a cloaked dagger, and his brother sees only a helpless maiden, a potential mate. And he knows nothing good will come from this. 

He plays along because Tyelkormo has always been sensitive to these kinds of things. His brother has been so tired lately,  _ they're all so tired already _ , and this  _ creature  _ holds the elusive power to pull him up and out from whatever depths he has sunken to, pull him away from the words of Oaths and the whispers of night.

_ She sings with the voices of gods, Curvo! She pulls starlight down from the heavens when she dances! _

He plays along because  _ perhaps  _ if he plays it right, he can tip the odds in their favor, and gain an ally most  _ powerful.  _ It is a deadly game, but he loves a challenge, and she is a master opponent and a lustrous prize all in one.

Tyelkormo treats her as he would a wounded animal: soft, gentle, sweet nothings and overflowing affection. This is the way he thinks. That perhaps he can tame her.  _ A strange concept. _

Nay, Curvo knows better. For she is more cunning than a fox and swifter than any elf, and he remembers what her mother is,  _ what she could be _ . 

_ You know who I am, she says, smiling in warning.  _

It is a strange and dangerous magic they are dealing with.

He keeps her close at hand, keeps his words guarded around her. She cannot know too much. He dismisses her feigned productions of concern for their cousin, carefully, skillfully. _She should not worry herself. She should be resting. She has been through far too much to trouble herself._ _All will be well. It will all be right._

She hates these words. He knows. She leaves him without doubt of what she feels, what she  _ wants,  _ fills his dreams with  _ horrors.  _

_ But his dreams are too dark to see anything anyway. _

Yet he cannot stop her from preying upon Tyelkormo. And this she  _ knows _ . 

He is too open, too bare. He wanders too close to her enchantments, her charms. He is easily led. He has been living in darkness so long, he is too desperate for light, or the illusions of light. 

That is why, when he finds her leaning against him by the river, hidden, tracing his jaw with slender fingers,  _ whispering her alluring poison _ , he is terrified. It is too soon.  _ She is all too close and too cold and too far in. And Tyelko is nearly iced over, nearly frozen, nearly hers.  _ She cannot be allowed to win.  _ She will not be victorious! _

He recovers the moment only barely, tears them apart with words of accusation and admonation. She must play along to maintain her public image, a bashful and blushing maiden  _ frightened by these strange strong Princes and their attention and attraction,  _ but he knows he cannot allow fate to tip that far in her favor ever again. 

He suffers  _ her wrath _ that night.  _ He withers in bed and bites back screams _ . 

But morning comes and he remains indifferent. 

But morning comes and Tyelkormo is hard and harsh and hardly speaks to him, as he often becomes when he does not, cannot  _ understand _ , and matters will only be made worse by his uncooperativeness.

So he takes measures to be more subtle. He does not wish for his brother’s humiliation, but the Oath has never been an easy thing to subdue or quiet.  _ And they are losing time and assets _ . 

These are the people of  _ Felagund.  _ They love beauty and they loved their king. They are starting to believe the beautiful Princess and are asking questions.

_ Where is the King? He is surely not dead. The Princess claims his company lives. Are they in peril? Will you do nothing? _ __

Huan is already lost to them. His treachery is inevitable, and will be willful. He growls at Curvo's approach now, threatens death with bloody fangs.  _ Death to those who defy the Lady of Nightingales! Death to those who forget their kin!  _

Tyelkormo does not realize this yet. Curvo must account for that. It will set them further back if he  _ reacts. Tyelkormo's anger comes quick but clumsy. It could be their downfall. _

The Princess continues to swell with power, weaves a stronger magic, and she persists, through cursed touches and woven words, and a false facade of understanding, of caring, and  _ of hope-- _ which proves the most dangerous.

_ We could reclaim what was lost to you. Together, yes. Perhaps, I could even love you.  _

Tyelkormo believes her, her promises, because he is broken and in need and far too emotional. He is like a hound at her feet, begging for attention and affection, and perhaps just the smallest taste of her divine light.

She holds open her hand to him, smiling and beaming in all her dark glory.

_ Come away with me! _

Her eyes are shining, her pale flesh glistening in the drizzling rain, her dark hair swirling and spiraling,  _ wrapping them both in her web. _

Her figure graceful and elegant as it moves, as she dances, as _she pulls starlight down and bends it to her will_. _She swallows all light surrounding her, pulling it unto herself, her dance, till only she remains, glowing in the darkness. Only she exists. And she is so very beautiful._

Tyelkormo starts to wonder why they do not go with her,  _ why they do not join her, worship her _ .

Curvo can see it in the way he dazes out the window,  _ hungry and lonely and lost. _ In the glitter that flashes within his eyes whenever she speaks. 

But  _ they can win _ , if Curvo can just stall long enough. If they can just keep her away from  _ wherever it was  _ long enough. Perhaps she will stay. He will convince her to stay,  _ she could be queen, perhaps? They could rule together? Her father is powerful. Her mother is...She is… _

_ He can. He will _ . 

Tyelkormo starts to forget. Forgetting to hunt, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to  _ think _ . He watches, he waits, and follows and listens and  _ worships _ . 

Curvo cannot stop it. She is slipping from their grasp, their control.  _ She is stealing their minds!  _ He cannot stop it. This was never a challenge for her,  _ was it? _

_ You knew, didn't you? You are... _

_ I am light. I am beauty. I am Tinúviel. I am starlight. I am lover. I am Princess. I am Queen.  _

_ She is brightness and shadow, birdsong in morning and howling at night. She is the wind over valleys, the whispers under fallen leaves. She is too much for him to control.  _

She tears a hole when she flees that night,  _ fluttering away like a bird from the branches,  _ a void of ravaged black left in her wake. 

The press of her lips burns on his forehead like a brand.

_ He sleeps with headaches thereafter, ten thousand nightingales screaming in a chaotic symphony of force and fury, of echoed anguish, of tarnished love and twisted passion.  _

_ Thank you,  _ she whispers, lips parted in a ghostly smile. He can hear her mocking laughter echoing in the wind.

“I thought that she loved me,” Tyelko says, staring blankly into the night, that pitch-black bloodied darkness, and he wants to scream. 

**Author's Note:**

> Response to a "darker version of a character" challenge with Rookblonkorules.


End file.
